Prekindergarten program boosts children's skills: Boston Public Schools' prekindergarten program is substantially improving children's readiness to start kindergarten, according to a new study of more than 2,000 children enrolled there. The program uses research-based curricula and teacher coaching, is taught primarily by masters-level teachers, and is open to any child. This study suggests that efforts to increase the enrollment of underrepresented Latino children in high-quality prekindergarten programs, such as the one studied here, may be beneficial.

Marital conflict causes stress in children, may affect cognitive development: Marital conflict is a significant source of environmental stress for children. Witnessing such conflict may harm their stress response systems, affecting their mental and intellectual development. Research findings suggest that stress from marital conflict can hinder children's development of cognitive ability.

Corvette Racer Avoids Crashes With Trick Radar Tech: When the No. 4 Corvette C6.R beat out a field of Ferraris, Porsches and Vipers at the 12 Hours of Sebring earlier this month, the 'Vette had a leg up on the competition. It wasn't extra horsepower or super-sticky tires that gave the drivers an advantage, but a handful of sensors and a PC running Linux.

Bees Communicate With Electric Fields: sciencehabit writes "The electric fields that build up on honey bees as they fly, flutter their wings, or rub body parts together may allow the insects to talk to each other, a new study suggests. Tests show that the electric fields, which can be quite strong, deflect the bees' antennae, which, in turn, provide signals to the brain through specialized organs at their bases. Antenna deflections induced by an electrically charged honey bee wing are about 10 times the size of those that would be caused by airflow from the wing fluttering at the same distance—a sign that electrical fields could be an important signal."

Building Better Body Armor With Nanofoams: Zothecula writes "Given that scientists are already looking to sea sponges as an inspiration for body armor, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that foam is also being considered ... not just any foam, though. Unlike regular foam, specially-designed nanofoams could someday not only be used in body armor, but also to protect buildings from explosions."

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Young, hot and blue: Stars in the cluster NGC 2547: The Universe is an old neighborhood -- roughly 13.8 billion years old. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is also ancient -- some of its stars are more than 13 billion years old (eso0425). Nevertheless, there is still a lot of action: new objects form and others are destroyed. In a new image, you can see some of the newcomers, the young stars forming the cluster NGC 2547.

Better-educated parents feed children fewer fats and less sugar: Almost 15,000 children aged between two and nine years old took part in the study. The level of education of parents has an influence on the frequency with which their children eat foods linked to obesity. The children of parents with low and medium levels of education eat fewer vegetables and fruit and more processed products and sweet drinks.

Do Big-Money Acquisitions Mean We're In a Tech Bubble?: Nerval's Lobster writes "When a major IT company pays a reported $30 million—roughly 90 percent of it in cash—for an iOS app with no monetization strategy and a million downloads since launch, is that a sign that the tech industry as a whole is riding a massive, overinflated bubble? Yahoo isn't alone, by a long shot: over the past couple years, a few apps have been snatched up for enormous sums—think Facebook's $1 billion acquisition of Instagram in 2012, or Google buying Sparrow for a reported $25 million. Nor has the money train stopped there: in a pattern that recalls the late-90s market frothiness for anyone over the age of 28, a handful of tech companies have either launched much-hyped IPOs or witnessed their share price skyrocket into the stratosphere. But does all this IPO activity and app-acquiring actually mean 'bubble'?"

You Don't 'Own' Your Own Genes: olePigeon (Wik) writes "Cornell University's New York based Weill Cornell Medical College issued a press release today regarding an unsettling trend in the U.S. patent system: Humans don't "own" their own genes, the cellular chemicals that define who they are and what diseases for which they might be at risk. Through more than 40,000 patents on DNA molecules, companies have essentially claimed the entire human genome for profit, report Dr. Christopher E. Mason of Weill Cornell Medical College, and the study's co-author, Dr. Jeffrey Rosenfeld, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey and a member of the High Performance and Research Computing Group, who analyzed the patents on human DNA. Their study, published March 25 in the journal Genome Medicine, raises an alarm about the loss of individual 'genomic liberty.'"

Mindfulness improves reading ability, working memory, and task-focus: If you think your inability to concentrate is a hopeless condition, think again -- and breathe, and focus. According to a new study, as little as two weeks of mindfulness training can significantly improve one's reading comprehension, working memory capacity, and ability to focus.

Has Kickstarter Peaked?: Nerval's Lobster writes "Kickstarter has taken off in the past year, raising big money for a wide variety of projects. Look at some of their stats: in June 2012, only seven projects raised more than a million dollars apiece; in the past nine months, another 16 projects have passed that threshold. Since the site began operations in 2009, several of the 38,000 funded projects have broken out as superstars, including the Pebble Watch and a new gaming console. With all this competition, has crowdfunding gotten, well, too crowded? Is Kickstarter peaking? As the dollar amounts have grown, so has the potential for abuse. Hidden amidst all these success stories and multi-million dollar payouts are some sadder tales. The majority of the nearly 50,000 unfunded Kickstarter projects received less than 20 precent of their funding goals, with 11 percent never even getting a single pledge."

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Laser empties atoms from the inside out: Plasma physicists have used one of the world's most powerful lasers to create highly unusual plasma composed of hollow atoms. The experimental work demonstrated that it is possible to remove the two most deeply bound electrons from atoms, emptying the inner most quantum shell and leading to a distinctive plasma state.